White Dwarf archive to be shut down?

[Asensur]

Yes, as the title says.

At the "GW goes digital" someone from the Customer Service replied to an user saying that from now on White Dwarf articles will be available only at the WD and IPad store.

So, no more painting articles, no binding scrolls, no apocalypse formations, no new scenarios, etc for the webpage.

This is a very bad step from GW if true.

Missed a WD issue? **** you.

Need newer content for your codex/expansion? **** you.

Need a step-by-step for a specific model? **** you.


Is the end of articles at the webpage? I understand they want some money from new rules, but limiting access to a "while stock lasts" magazine and an expensive tablet is awful.

Why not make White Dwarf annuals from previous years?

Why not make a Games Workshop insider?

Why do I need to buy a 400€ device to get a scroll of binding?

Do not misunderstand me. Having additional features in an IPad version is cool. Having exclusive rules for IPad is not.

[AlexHolker]

I was thinking much the same thing. While I have no intention of ever using the so-called "Sisters of Battle Codex", it would add insult to injury if GW decided to further suppress the interest in the army by making it iPad only.

[The bearded one]

... yes, it's very, very stupid. If only Ipads were as ubiquitous as laptops and computers, then it would've been a good step and GW could've provided lots of funky 50ct articles, scenarios, gaming apps etc.

As far as I know some of the things mentioned haven't been available on the GWsite for a few years though.

[Tresidentevil]

iBooks can surely be put on any pc? Hardly limited to the actual iPad device. If it is limited to iPad that sucks. People always scan their copies of white dwarf and make them available for illegal download anyway.

[Sean_OBrien]

... yes, it's very, very stupid. If only Ipads were as ubiquitous as laptops and computers, then it would've been a good step and GW could've provided lots of funky 50ct articles, scenarios, gaming apps etc.

As far as I know some of the things mentioned haven't been available on the GWsite for a few years though.

Most of it was actually still there - though when they redesigned the website, they hired idiots to do the work. If you were looking for a painting article relating to Space Marines, you had to log into your account (most of it you needed to be logged in to access) and then find the Space Marines in the webshop. Once there, if you looked at the bottom of the list - there is a section called articles. That would take you to a different section which had several different articles which covered things like list building, painting and easy conversions (all the really good stuff didn't get transferred over).

The apocalypse datasheets where there as well - and some of the WD special rules (I know that you could find the rules for the Night Spinner and what not when that model was released). They were more difficult to find though.

iBooks can surely be put on any pc? Hardly limited to the actual iPad device. If it is limited to iPad that sucks. People always scan their copies of white dwarf and make them available for illegal download anyway.

Not only can you not put iBooks on a PC - you can't put iBooks on a Mac or even an iPhone (or iPod Touch). It is iPad only.

[theJ]

If they extend this thing to support stuff other than iPad(most notably Laptop) then I'll probably let it pass... it's digital already, and I can accept a couple microtransactions to keep the painting articles going... then again, from what I've heard from the other threads, "micro" doesn't quite describe it...

Time will tell how this stuff evolves... and evolve it must, because the current system just ain't enough.

[Freakiq]

Bad move from GW if they don't release them for PC and Android as this will only lead to people pirating the stuff that's not available to them.

And no Warseer mods, I'm not promoting piracy so keep your fingers off the trigger.

[AndrewGPaul]

Not only can you not put iBooks on a PC - you can't put iBooks on a Mac or even an iPhone (or iPod Touch). It is iPad only.

You can put most books purchased from the Apple iBook store onto an iPhone or iPod. Just not these ones (and certainly plenty of others that I've not bothered to find out about). Ordinary text-only books from Apple are epub files with DRM. Not sure about these GW ones, because they don't sync onto my PC.


To the OP:

"At the "GW goes digital" someone from the Customer Service replied to an user saying that from now on White Dwarf articles will be available only at the WD and IPad store."

Where did you hear this? It's not the blog article or on the homepage under that title. Was there a seminar somewhere?

[Sean_OBrien]

Guess I should have been more specific. Replace iBooks with iBooks 2 (which is the what the documents in question are restricted to use on).

Regarding the comment - somewhere towards the middle of the GW Goes Digital thread, there is a post from a person who contacted GW Customer Service. He relayed portions of the information gained from them. While it is hard to know what the CS rep actually is aware of, considering that they have the Scrolls of Binding as iBook only - it is not hard to imagine things like painting articles and the like will also become iBook only paid downloads, which of course lends itself to the veracity of the information.

[DarkWarrior1981]

Seems in line with what BL does (charging money for wallpapers, which were for free some months ago), so why don't charge money for hobby content etc.

[Caiphas Cain]

Well to be fair, nothing in White Dwarf is really worth reading the first time. Why would I care that some stupid people are going to pay 50 cents for worthless articles? If you want to learn how to paint something, google it. If you want a new scenario, make one up. It's not that hard.

[Bael]

Does GW even upload articles or resources to their site anymore? Genuine question, because I can't find anything on their site that is available as a download that was uploaded after March 2011, with the vast majority of articles being much older.

[Clobbersaurus]

Unless I'm missing something, content has been getting removed regularly for years. There used to be a nice guide to building the Hellstorm, and tons of other Empire articles. They are all gone now.

[Scaryscarymushroom]

Well to be fair, nothing in White Dwarf is really worth reading the first time. Why would I care that some stupid people are going to pay 50 cents for worthless articles? If you want to learn how to paint something, google it. If you want a new scenario, make one up. It's not that hard.

*sigh*

Regardless of the worth of the articles, they're not paying 50 cents. Not everyone has access to the App store, or wants to buy apple products to gain access to the material on it. For a lot of gamers, the asking price requires an investment of $500 and up. For an article that is debatedly worth 50 cents to people who have already invested hundreds of dollars in GW's other products.

It appears to me that there are two ways to make the $500 iPad useful: You can either pay through the nose to put decent software on it, or you can do illegal things.

I don't think they're worth the money Apple wants for them, the same way I don't think Storm Ravens are worth GW's asking price. So, I won't buy one and even if I thought the articles were worth 50 cents each, I wouldn't have access to them because I'm not willing to lay down that $500 investment for a gimped laptop with multi-touch tricks that's software-policed by techno-fascists.

Just another way that GW is pricing people out of their product range, and killing their own community.

[Schmapdi]

Honestly - it's stupid as hell on GWs part.

One of the reasons I got into painting minis/collecting was because of the large amount of tutorials/articles the GW site USED to provide. They took something that seemed impossibly complicated at the time and made it simpler and easier to follow. My first purchases (including what paints to buy) were guided in large part by "ok, which of these do I think I can do and not screw up terribly? - Hello Necrons!"

Now - people like me (well, the 2008 me) probably either: won't have any guidance and will just give up completely. Stumble onto Warseer or the like and be hit with a) large amounts of GW negative sentiment, b) large amounts of awesome competing products.

But hey - GW might sell a 50 cent tutorial to a small portion of the small portion of it's audience that own an Ipad. So good trade-off there.